I'm kind of curious if any people on here were hypochondriacs before getting BFS. My whole life, I've been somewhat of a hypochondriac. For an example (and this is comical) when I was 9 years old, I remember feeling a bit of pain around my chest and got some idea in my head that I was dying of a heart attack. I probably didn't weigh but 85 lbs soaking wet then, and people always made a comment about how skinny I was, and someone once made the mistake of saying I looked kind of like a cancer patient. Which then made me consider that I just might have cancer. And I'll never forget when I was 12 and I "thought" I got bit by a rabid chipmunk and CONVINCED myself that I was going to die of rabies until my mom took me to a doctor about it. I went through a time when I would get headaches and convinced myself I had a tumor. If it wasn't one thing, it was another. And then there would be brief carefree periods where I wouldn't be concerned about something. But for some reason, I always picked the most outrageous diagnosis. When I was 16, I remember feeling my first real muscle spasm/twitch in my side start acting up before a ballet recital and after a time when I thought I had some other problem. And then it just escalated from there. And I would go through extreme bouts of researching and thinking I had MS, ALS, all those diseases. And then I would talk to my mom about it and feel better because she has a medical background and has a good knowledge on pretty much anything out there. But, for some reason, I always found myself coming back to worrying and being anxious about it. It's just my nature. I sometimes feel like I am crazy for being so concerned about health. Some of my siblings have the hypochondriac thing, but not nearly as bad as me. And also, no one else in my family has the BFS symptoms like I do. It's been almost 5 years, and I am extremely healthy and normal in everything else except the twitching. It's just the one abnormality I have. It's very bizarre, and makes me really wonder what's wrong with me on some days, whereas on others, I'm completely fine and never give it a second thought. (Primarily because it's been bothering me for YEARS and you learn to cope with it after awhile) Right now I'm feeling one of those annoying buzzing twitches. It's always when I'm really stressed out and anxious that it gets noticeably worse. In addition to my BFS and hypochondria, I am an insomniac. I probably don't get near enough sleep as I need. It's 2:30am where I am right now, for example. And I'm not even sleepy. I'm sitting up thinking about the "joys" of BFS. -_- *SIGH* Anyway. I can tell a lot of y'all on here have experienced major anxiety, but I just am curious as to if any of you were as health cautious and conscious BEFORE you developed BFS like I was, or not. Because I know I always have been.

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."2 Timothy 1:7

I was not health concerned, but I was an anxious wreck since 6 yo. It was separation fear so I had daily torments virtually witout major carefree periods (at least for now it seems to me that I had bouts every year,and since 12 it become constant, extremely bad on 14, 16 (up to medication) and later on...I had started psychotherapy on 37 and it helped me a lot.

I've been so healthy my whole life and was never health conscious before this whole BFS menagerie started. As soon as my bilateral ulnar / median nerve issues started I was all over Google, WebMD, etc. When the twitches started, I was self-diagnosing myself... ordering books about MS, etc. I've done my best to back off from researching, but each new symptom entices me to throw it into a search engine just to make sure it's nothing sinister. Instead, I just come to this site and use the search engine. I need to stay in the same community since I really believe BFS / PNH is what I'm dealing with. I've been through too many tests and visited too many doctors to think otherwise. I'm on here now because for the last few days I've started having some chest pains... similar to costchondritis. I had it once before (~6 months ago). It's a little different now. But, it's a very common symptom in the fibromyalgia world and many folks believe BFS / PNH / Fibro are linked or share similar symptoms.

Another quick note... ANXIETY is ABSOLUTEY the worst cause of my symptoms. I had one traumatic experience after another that led to my symptoms. And each new symptom creates new worry... it's a vicious cycle that I'm doing my best to get out of. I believe that my body just went through so much emotional shock that I "fried" my nervous system and now it's "new normal" is to be hypersensitive about EVERYTHING!

Being a hypochondriac is something I have had most of my life. I remember being 10 years old and reading a medical book my parents had. It had common diseases and their symptoms, lots of pictures...I was 10 and self-checking and thinking I had deadly diseases. Lol. It's crazy to think it's been that long. I had convinced myself I had every cancer known to man and was having a heart attack on a daily basis. Fast forward 13 years and now it's been about 21 months of twitching, fatigue, numbness/tingling, dizziness, etc. etc. As has been mentioned many times, BFS has many triggers but anxiety is like fuel on the fire.